Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.

The list of victims includes 105 children under the age of 5, and 52 who had yet to reach the age of 1.

It was not clear why Wichita's rate of stranger murders was higher than that of most jurisdictions. But it's possible that a murder that occurred during a robbery could be reported as a "stranger killing" by one jurisdiction and an "acquaintance killing" by another.

Solving a homicide

At the onset of any homicide investigation, Landwehr said, detectives know there's a good chance that there will be a connection between the victim and the killer.

"You go from the most intimate relationships on out," he said. "The odds are that 75 percent are related — or at least knew their victims very well."

Although they are rare, Landwehr said, true stranger homicides have occurred in Wichita.

Nine of the 10 BTK killings were true stranger murders, he said, as were the five murders committed by Jonathan and Reginald Carr in December 2000. He also mentioned the July 1990 murder of 9-year-old Nancy Shoemaker, who was abducted by a stranger in south Wichita.

Former Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed estimated that he worked on 100 homicide cases over the years, but only a handful involved true stranger killings.

One case that sprang to mind, he said, was the Aug. 30, 1979, murder of North High School teacher Robert Temple and his wife, Letha. They were shot to death in their home at 739 N. 119th St. West.

Steed said the murders occurred as detectives were investigating a string of burglaries in the area.

"Eventually when you start looking at those you say, 'This burglary is similar to that burglary, and that burglary is similar to that burglary.'... We actually solved it (the murder) by working backwards through all the burglary cases."

Two 16-year-olds who were implicated in the burglaries were charged and convicted of the murders.

Steed said it's much easier to solve a case when there is a tie between the victim and killer.

"What you're looking for in a homicide investigation is a connection and a motive," he said. "There's usually some history — some anger or bad blood.

"When it's totally random, there's just very little evidence to lead you to the suspect."

Even in stranger murder cases, suspects often unwittingly implicate themselves.

"One of the things that often helps in a homicide investigation is that we deal with people, and people like to talk," he said. "And other people will tell on them.

"If it's a totally random stranger homicide where a person doesn't talk, it can be pretty difficult to solve."

The La'Bride case

Although the bridal shop killings remain unsolved, police have identified the suspect in the case as the I-70 killer.

The serial killer murdered six people in 1992 — all near interstate highways in Kansas, Indiana, Missouri and Texas.

Bob Trendel, Patricia Smith's father, said early on in the investigation that a detective told him, "If it's somebody local, we'll catch him. If it's somebody from out of town, we'll probably never know who it is."

Trendel said he never thought the killer was from Kansas.

Trendel said police took his daughter's keys into evidence as well as a cash drawer that was handled by the killer. He said he assumes police have the killer's fingerprints. He said there are other leads that should point to the killer.

"Practically everyone that he killed looked basically alike," he said. "This guy for some reason seemed to prey on brunettes, young brunettes.

"They were each shot one time in the back of the head. They have two different composites that as far as I'm concerned look like twin brothers."

Trendel said he finds it frustrating that police have never talked openly about the investigation.

"I would like to know if they're doing anything at all," he said. "They haven't told me anything in 10 years. Did they just stick it in the back room and forget it?

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